rainwater
by Immoroita
Summary: his hands trail across her skin and leave behind scars kissed by fire. [finnick & annie]


**Author's Note: **Something with which to celebrate the release of Catching Fire (which I have not seen yet, but will soon). Also, I missed writing these two.

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **his hands trail across her skin and leave behind scars kissed by fire. [finnick & annie]

* * *

**T**here's something wrong with the world, she realizes one morning, when she wakes up and it doesn't smell like home. Annie Cresta stares listlessly at an unfamiliar white wall that is blank and empty as strange machines beep softly and tubes filled with a clear liquid snake around each other and attach themselves to her veins. Somewhere, somewhere very far away from here, there is the murmuring of voices and the quiet scratching of pencils on paper.

But right here, right now, there is nothing but her.

After everything has come to an end, Annie Cresta will be the only one who remains – just the faint imprint of a girl who treads lightly upon the soil of the forgotten earth.

He screams her name and reaches for her, but these are things that are happening in a place that is so far from where she is that they may as well be in different universes. She is suspended in a world that is connected to his by a single thread that is being unraveled so quickly that she no longer has the will to hold on to it any more.

But suddenly, he's _there_ – he's real, he's oh, so real. Finnick's hand seizes hers and grasps it tightly, pulling her away from the memories and the fear and –

He smells like the sea. His hands are warm and calloused. She turns her head to see him, the only real thing in the illusion that is her world.

He's crying. There are tears sliding down his cheeks and he's leaning forward to press his forehead to hers. Her eyes close as he cries onto her face and she realizes that maybe, _finally_, she isn't completely alone.

"Annie," he's saying, over and over again. "Annie, my Annie, my Annie. Annie. My Annie."

His Annie.

She is his Annie.

His name rolls off her tongue so easily that it's like it's always been there right on the tip, just waiting. And for the first time in nine days, Annie Cresta speaks.

"Finnick," she breathes. "Finnick Odair."

* * *

**W**hen she has been moved into her place in District Four's Victor's Village, Finnick never leaves her side. He leaves his own house vacant and stays by her every moment of the day. In the nights, when Annie wakes up screaming, he's always right there, planting kisses on her face, on her collarbone, on her ear.

The kisses are fleeting and disappear quickly, but he does not.

It takes a while, but soon, they move back to what they were before. Annie will never be as vibrant as before, of course, and Finnick will never smile exactly the way he used to, but slowly, they build themselves up again to be what they were in that life that seems an eternity away.

She wakes earlier than he does and spends the early hours of the morning watching how he moves, how he breathes, and falls deeper in love with him with every passing day. Finnick is so good to her – so sweet and kind and gentle and patient.

Every day, Annie looks at him, and wonders what exactly she did to deserve someone as beautiful as he.

Usually, they talk into the late hours of the night, absorbed in nothing but each other. Some nights, there is no talking.

"Finnick," Annie breathes as he trails kisses down her neck and her pale, slender fingers tangle in his mussed up hair. His hands trail across his skin and leave behind scars kissed by fire, and all other speech dissipates into the depths of the night.

He fixes her, and makes her whole again. And she likes to think that in a way, she does the same to him.

* * *

**O**f course, he has to be taken from her. She's certain it's a punishment to them when she shrieks his name desperately and reaches for him when his name is spoken and he walks to his death.

In the Justice Building, she runs to him and entangles herself in him, breathing in his scent, and trying to convince herself that if she holds on long enough, she will be able to hold him forever. Finnick cups her face in his hands and forces her to meet his eyes, which are beautiful and sea green and broken, broken, broken.

"Annie, there will be people who come for you," Finnick murmurs quietly, and brings her face closer to his. "When they do, promise not to worry. I will rescue you."

"I know," Annie replies. He always rescues her. She's always the one who needs rescuing, and he's always the one who does it, without question. "I know."

"Annie," he whispers, and her name hangs in the air, like he's trying to hold onto it, and his voice is barely a breath. "I'm going to come back to you."

"I know," she cries desperately, clutching onto him tightly. "I know, I know."

She pulls him closer and their lips meet in the kind of kiss that is rough and unchaste and is filled with nothing but the raw desire to feel him closer to her. But, all too soon, the two minutes that they have passes, and she is pulled, hysterically screaming his name, from the room, and the last thing she sees of him is a brave smile that nobody but she sees.

Annie does not sleep that night. She sits in her living room and stares at the floor, because she is terrified of what will happen when she goes to bed and Finnick is not there.

* * *

**T**hey come for her one day, crashing through her front door and grabbing her arms with such force that she immediately sinks into one of her hazy stupors. He warned her about this – he warned her about Peacekeepers taking her somewhere. He told her, he told her.

She's thrown into a dark room, with other huddled figures that she cannot see. (Somewhere, she can hear Johanna Mason crying bloody murder, and the voice of Peeta Mellark, whom she's seen and heard on the television a thousand times before.)

Annie is strapped to a bed, with shadowy figures around her. A low chuckle sounds out, from the darkness.

"Oh, Miss Annie Cresta," the voice says, full of unconcealed delight at the pain that they are clearly causing her. It floods into her – tendrils of darkness that creep into her soul. "I would be ever so happy if you would be so kind as to tell us what you know about the rebels."

She does not reply. She cannot reply.

"Ah, I see," the voice continues, as though it had been expecting this sort of reaction. "Your response is silence. I understand. Well, all right. We have other ways." And suddenly, the voice is right next to her ear, a whisper that pours directly into her mind and touches its deepest, darkest areas. "We have other ways, Miss Annie Cresta, of making you talk."

Her mind is somewhere else, but her physical body feels the electric shocks that course through her body, and her mouth opens to let out cries of terror and pain.

* * *

**T**here she lays – the empty shell of the Accidental Victor, who won without any actual talents. The room is empty and there is no more screaming. Or perhaps that's just her mind.

She is aware of a blinding light, and suddenly, she is not in the Capitol any more.

People in grey uniforms bustle around, barking out orders. Two people wearing these grey uniforms are supporting her arms as she stumbles down the blindingly white hallway. A stretcher races past her, and Annie can briefly glimpse the dilapidated body of the District Seven Victor from a few years ago. (Names escape her. She cannot remember anybody's name – not even her own.)

But, wait.

There is one she remembers.

His sharp, rugged profile is easy to see in the whiteness of the hallway. His face is pale and tense, and his once-bright eyes dart around, looking for something. She doesn't give the people supporting her a second thought as she snatches her arms from them and races forward.

His name falls from her lips as easily as it always has.

"Finnick!" she cries, and she can feel tears streaming down her cheeks. "Finnick!"

He turns to see her, and his face goes even paler than before. "Annie!" he shouts back, and he's tearing past the crowds of busy people to meet her. They crash into each other, and her arms wrap tightly around him, unwilling to ever release him.

His arms go around her waist and he starts to cry into her shoulder. Everyone around them seems afraid to touch them.

Annie has Finnick, and Finnick has Annie. And if that's the way it's going to be from now on, that's okay.

* * *

**L**ooking at herself in the mirror, she realizes that she looks like someone else. She's not Annie Cresta – she's an altered, heavily made up, far more beautiful version of herself.

She scares herself.

The people scurrying around her fix up the swishing folds of cloth that are her clothes and she looks down at herself. Her breasts are too big and her waist is too thin and her entire body is different. Finnick can't see her like this, she thinks suddenly, desperately, as she's spun around and marched towards the door.

(Before she walks out, she quickly takes out the padding in the chest area of her dress and pulls out the thread that's holding the dress too tight to her waist.)

Seeing Finnick stand at the end of the aisle immediately erases all her fears. He's like someone out of a fairytale, and suddenly, there's nothing but him and her. Just like it's always been.

Happiness radiates from her during the entire wedding, but it's the part after it that she remembers most. He shuts the door behind them in their new (shared) compartment and kisses her. There's a sort of raw excitement at the thought that they're not just Finnick and Annie anymore, they're _Finnick and Annie._

There is a big difference, she thinks to herself as their bodies move in time to the silent song that nobody but them can hear.

* * *

_**N**__o, he's not, _is the first thing that comes into her mind when they tell her. _No, he's not. He told me he wouldn't. Finnick told me._

She's drowning. Annie Cresta is drowning. She's been burnt, and she's been suffocated, and she's been decapitated. But she has never, never drowned. She sinks underneath the surface of the water and her eyes close. Bubbles stream from her mouth and there is no Finnick to pull her up.

They were going to be happy, oh, they were going to be happy. The child growing in her stomach will never know his father. Finnick will be nothing but a story after today. They're not Finnick and Annie anymore. It's just Annie now.

In retrospect, she'd known all along. She'd known that nobody would ever stay with someone like her long enough.

Because after everything has come to an end, Annie Cresta will be the only one who remains – just the faint imprint of a girl who treads lightly upon the soil of the forgotten earth.


End file.
